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Storage limits I think are important for several reasons.
1) The game uses up physical memory that costs blizzard money, so they don’t want to give unlimited storage space as that would cost them a lot more money.

2) It is good for the economy of the game. To sell, buy and trade items is a big part of most online multiplayer games. Hording needs a limit I feel.

For instance D2 had this occur in certain ways. Although there were mules, at some point the maintenance of 2-3 mules got too much for me and some others.
So what did we do? Gold wasn’t worth anything. Trading was only really done for high end items or if you were after some of the low level sets. Instead, I remember going to games called “Freeee” or “Junk”. Where people would through away their unneeded items to make space. As a new player you went to these games and got some items and as an older player you would throw away items.

It almost worked, apart from those who had lots of mules and only horded items rather than putting them back into the economy.

I like hording but I also like and need a limit. At one point or another I needed to empty out all my arctic belts, cleglaws claws and berserker helms.

I just feel that Mules can break the storage limits and compromise the economy of the game?

I would want to see D3 make mules obsolete, have a better economy, have a large shared stash with some customisation functionality and an individual stash that scales with level.

I really like your ideas Ophion.

The only one I don’t think would work is that, having ONLY a shared stash feels unrealistic. Your character probably shouldn’t be able to carry around 1000s of kgs (or pounds for most of you) of equipment where ever they go. The shared stash may work like the D2 stash and maybe travels around with your artisan entourage?

Listing your items in an almost database directory type way may start to lose the feel of the items. I sort of like my trophy room layouts, call me old fashioned. Which is why I really like the tabbed idea you said, with the ability to categorize/organise/customise your stash to the way YOU want it.

The notification idea is really good to. However I think it’s more of a nice to have feature and maybe difficult to implement.
Although if you eliminate mules, you may eliminate that problem of forgetting about items.
Again, if you could customize your stash the way you want, you may be able to organise tabs by level requirements, as opposed to organising them by specific slot items.

If you can find ways to break limits in a game, then what’s the point of implementing them in the first place?
Having Mule characters almost breaks any type of storage mechanic.

Maybe...The storage available for an account with 1 character should be almost the same as an account with the max number of characters per account? With a small bit of difference between the two examples maybe... but not like D2 where if you have 10 characters you have 10x as much storage space.

This is where a shared stash would be good. But Blizzard would need to reduce the amount of individual storage space a character has i think...

This is mainly trying to stop level 1 mules. Maybe I wouldn’t mind as much if your individual storage space is improved by level, quests etc. As this requires extra storage space to be earned...But an exponential difference is undesired I think.

Hi Ophion,

All great comments, thanks!

The worth of an item is in the eye of the beholder. In saying that there will be people with different views like me and you. Some will value having horded items over money and others will have the reverse.

For instance, in my case- having all the items of a 5 piece set for level 20 characters, is worth more to me in my stash than the gold I would get for selling them.

My stash in D2 always felt a little bit like a trophy room. The look and feel of having the items is worth more to me than having high amounts of gold. Hording would save me time and effort on a trading system as I would be my own supplier of items. It would allow me to hack and slash a bit more than someone who prefers trading.
Again some people enjoy playing things like auction houses in games, others are not as keen. For those that aren’t item storage is a concern.

The achievement comment I might retract as you’re right it probably wouldn’t fulfil game achievements but rather my own satisfaction of having my own personal trophy room.

If I am an established player and I want to have a casual game with my friends who are new to the game, I might be able to give them some better than average gear at the start (straight away), so we can enjoy a more balanced party experience. Whether it be arena or pve.

Thanks again for the feedback!
Also I just want to say I having been following Diablo fans for the last year and half or so and really like everything you do here. So thought it was about time I made a thread to add to such a great site!

Hi Maka,

I think replay ability is a big factor when hording. Creating new character builds, having pvp arena twinks of specific levels, fulfilling achievements and also playing with friends and sharing items with them are reasons for hording.

Hording may not be important to those who just want one end game character with the best items. But there will be more incentives to reroll characters in D3 than D2. Therefore the incentives to horde will be there as well.

Cheers

Hey Ophion

Even if the game is supposed to have a working money economy, it will not change a lot of peoples preference to horde items.

No matter what the game.. Rare drop items > money

To buy rare drop items from other players will cost you a premium. therefore obtaining and hording the items yourself would be preferred in my opinion. The time you would sell items is when you have duplicates of items or they are of low quality.

Hording will be done, so again it leads back to exploring how D3 might manage the players need better than before.

Thanks again

Hi Ophion,

Why is D3 not an item economy? I would assume it would be. I don't think it will be based on money...

I see people hording good items rather than selling items in D3. D3 to me and I assume others is "all about the loot" and money would always be secondary. I will most likely collect and horde rare /set items, gems, recipes etc.

Hording will be done I believe, as I will do it... therefore the system that will manage that requirement is what I am trying find out through this topic. All of the responses so far have been great by the way.

Cheers

Hi Grankvisten,

I guess the character limit amount that I listed (50) was ambiguous and subject to change.

However, my point I guess was to illustrate that people may exploit the amount of characters avaliable to be created, just to horde items. Which is not the function of having multiple characters... Multiple Characters should be for things like replay ability, arena pvp builds/twinks or creating different pve builds?

Having a shared stash has a specific function. Its function should not be compromised by charcters mules?

What do you think?

Cheers

Hi,

Thanks for the great input!
I like the ‘Plugy’ idea of a shared stash that Hans said. I also like the idea of just ONE big shared stash.
I guess I can see that in MMO games, you always have an item stash in some form. For each character you have, there is a limit of space. But players always try to have more space than what is given to them. So we make Mule characters to have that almost limitless space.
It sort of breaks the developers design a bit? Or maybe the design is flawed to begin with? But I would much rather have just have one massive shared stash, with a massive limit. Maybe it can increase with the PlugY idea.
It would also mean that all players are equal with the amount of space they have to horde items. I know that everyone is able to create 50 players if they want to. But not everyone can be bothered with that character maintenance and I think just one massive stash is just more practical.
Thanks for the quick feedback though

Hi,

Was wondering about how D3 is going to handle the shared stash idea?

I think I read somewhere ages ago that it is going to be BIG, but i think that at some point there will be a limit to it?
In which case no matter how many characters you make, you cannot make it bigger?
This would stop things like character muling, but also limit item hording?

Thoughts or Corrections?

Cheers

Blizzard have been talking a lot about character customization as being a key element in d3. In terms of how much you can carry ,I think that what would be really good would be if there were draw backs from having a big inventory space.

For instance; You could have a basic inventory with say 40 tetris slots. You could also choose to add 5 more. But to do so would mean that maybe your defence would be decreased by X amount or the damage you do would go down, or your MF is lessened.

This is just an idea, but this would be cool i think as it would add more of that thinking element found in diablo games.

Hi,

With the Map system in D2 you could press the TAB key to see the map and where other players were. In single player mode, if you explored the map it would retain that information so that next time you played you wouldn't have to search for Caves, Entry and Exit points and also it was satisfying to of explored every part of the D2 world.

However, on closed Battle net the map would not be retained, due to the fact that the world map was not static and was mostly randomised.

My question is two fold,

1) is there going to be in D3 a similar map system like the TAB key used in D2?

2) And if so, since the enviroment is mostly static, would that mean that in battle net your explored map would be retained.

The map system in d2 i doubt will be seen in d3 as it clutters the screen (was bad enough on d2) but there might be something similar in terms of the new map system.

Please give me your comments or answers if you know how the new map system is going to work.

Cheers